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But it's not really surprising is it? The fact is we need a crutch to try and compensate for the undoubted challenge of trying to catch a species - Atlantic salmon but there are others - that does not feed in freshwater. A fish that is as wild as the North Atlantic ocean, a fish that needs stout tackle to land, but may be in the mood to shy away from even a 15lb nylon leader (allegedly!)

So what brought on this quasi-rant? Only the fact that a friend who has been fishing the Lakselva river in northern Norway for the past 2 weeks gave me the following picture of paradise via Facebook last night:

'The river contains both more grilse and salmon than I have seen here before - and plenty of very big ones! People may not be catching masses of the big ones but they are not catching many of the grilse either when you consider the number of fish in the river - the conditions for the last two weeks have been far from ideal, basically the river is pretty low. but it is absolutely stuffed with fish large and small!'

The 9lb sea-liced Gaula salmon that took a liking for my Blue Charm last Friday.

Now I referred in a previous post to the comment from Thies R about him having seen a grilse jump in Home pool as I fished it, ‘behind me’ at lunchtime on the Friday. Now aside from the fact that this could have been the same fish I caught five hours later, three miles up the river, the reason I was so absorbed after I fished out the tail of Home and then took some shots of the beautiful fire place just up on a sort of sand dune there, is I was tying on a special-looking dressed fly I’d spotted in my box. Holographic silver body, fluorescent yellow tag, simple drop-down hairwing – and at the business end equipped with those awesomely sharp, curved predatory Salar hook points. I turned it in my fingers against Trondelag’s August midday sun and, alone on this Gaula beach, I smiled.

The truth is I’d forgotten I had this fly – but right now it looked bloody brilliant.

It was a Blue Charm tied on a silver size 7 double hook by Donegal Flies. I’d bought it a couple of years previously because it looked the business and, carefully turle-knotted onto a nice

On Thursday my father caught his 3rd Nith summer salmon in three years – a cock fish weighing a shade under 10lb straight up from the Solway on the recent rains. Sore from recent heart surgery, he had no option but to spin.

Now back in Cambridgeshire I can reflect on another restful/infuriating/brilliant five high summer days on Dumfriesshire's River Nith.The result in fish terms was a sea trout and a 9 3/4 lb salmon but as always there was much more to it than that.For starters I nearly joined Dad on the salmon bandwagon (or at least grilse or decent seatrout) myself on our final day yesterday:The water looked perfect for Friday, at 10am as I fished down Wee Porters. Half-an-hour later I was in the main Porters pool and had a really strong take and pull as I retrieved with firm pulls my Silver stoat Waddington into my near, left half of the river. The fish (5lb? It’s just so hard to say) was patient as I sorted getting in touch – then went ballistic, head shaking and zagging in the river downstream as I lowered the rod somewhat until.. The hook pulled out.I’ve never got on with those Waddington mounts – too much leverage but the fact is that in my box it was the perfect fly to choose and it did get the all important reaction at least. I get a lot of satisfaction that I've brought a

It’s not really a sentence, is it? Blogging daily from Nith and Gaula?

So how about this (which is not really a question):

Over the next seven weeks or so I shall, for four of those weeks, be blogging from bankside (on either my smartphone, Fish and Fly laptop or the Norwegian office computer) about my efforts to catch a salmon or two, and help my friends and family do likewise. Be it on the River Nith (July 16-21) or Norway’s Gaula (July 29-August 5; August 19-31), there is – like they say – a lot more to fishing than trying to catch fish and I hope to cover it all and keep you interested.

An August grilse from the Gaula.

I shall be blogging both on HSA and here on FandF.

So that’s it. I’ll kick off from Nithsdale in about ten days’ time. So Tight lines everyone if you’re fishing and don’t forget to report back to me here or in my capacity as features editor on Fish and Fly and we’ll hopefully get some pictures of happy people with silver salmon or sea-trout up online before too long.

Not the fattest Varzuga salmon - but a fresh fish nonetheless and most welcome when you've left your bed 2 hours before breakfast!

A before-breakfast salmon, a small contribution to the 8,500 caught in the short but record-breaking six-week Varzuga season just ended. I took very few fish photographs this time but just quickly snapped this fella, which took a Ronald Sutherland silver Conehead in black, green and (crucially for the Varzuga), orange in the lower home pool, Greenbank. Sadly I cracked the fly off on just about the next cast so wound in the slack line and made my way to the lodge for one of Marieke’s superb bacon breakfasts in the Sabacchi lodge.

It's always good to see sea-trout running a salmon river and the latest report on the Norwegian Flyfishers’ Club Gaula website shows a photo of a nice 5lb sea-trout caught by fly-dresser and creator of sharp and strong salmon fly-hoooks, Ken Sawada. Ken caught his sea-trout the week before last at the NFC beats of the Gaula (beat E3). A nice 6lb sea trout was caught by Daniel Stephan also.

Overall fishing was held up by the big flood of last week where heavy rain melted snow in the mountains. But fishing now is back to its pre-flood form albeit mostly on the lower, E beats and new beat L1.

Expect explosive salmon action when salmon do pass up the Gaulfossen in numbers and hit the Støren (middle river) beats.

Also last night saw the St Hans day showing of the Anton Hamacher and Daniel Göz film, Gaula River of Silver & Gold in Stören and I trust and hope that went really well. Certainly it was shown to a sell-out audience of hard-core salmon junkies!

So the video was running, and Jess was taking his time. That is not to say he was not playing his salmon hard, because he was, giving it butt by pointing his rod almost directly at the fish which was careering around in the Sabacchi rapids below him. He was playing an eight-pounder plus the full force of the Varzuga and that's quite a lot of energy to be hanging off the drag of your fly-reel.

The time was Noon in the Russian Federation. High Noon: but just 9am in the UK, where decent working folk would be sitting down to their office computers and comparing notes on their Jubilee bank holiday experiences. (My own Jubilee Tuesday experiences had comprised pulling my best fish of the week, a very fresh and angry 10lb salmon from the Thirty Nine Steps flatwater halfway up Lower Varzuga's bottom beat rapids but that's another story..)

Back to Jess who had now made one attempt to grab the tail of his fish in swirling waters but now finally caught and released his salmon amid the difficult technical scenario of tucking his rod under his arm in order to extract an admittedly barbless hook from the scissors.

Back in Murmansk for the flight home after a week of fascinating salmon-fishing experience

Actually there were two of them. Best mornings ever. And as to whether they really were my best two fishing mornings ever – who knows? They certainly felt like that at the time.

I woke up last Wednesday morning (not the one just gone, the one nine days ago). The night had been kind, the going to bed not too late. The sleep deep.

The time was 3am UK time of a few days before, but a very much more respectable 6am in the Russian Federation. I drank water. I swallowed an Ibuprofen 400 (like a fluo-pink M&M, very useful fishing trip medication). I slipped a spool of 12lb Maxima into my pocket, and a half-inch brass orange tube-fly and donned thigh waders, specially bought from Farlows a few weeks before for the mission at hand (ie before-breakfast fishing, when the very last thing you want to do is pull on your chest waders. I mean before you’ve had a coffee? Please!).

Down to the river, 200 yards away. No ordinary river: this is the Varzuga. This was the Varzuga. Wide, sweeping, majestic really – she looked serious, yet promising. Not forbidding, well not this part of her anyway.

This is probably long overdue given all the movies featuring trout, pike, bonefish and various other species, but the Atlantic Salmon, glamour species extraordinaire for some reason managed to escape the limelight on the whole until recently when a small flood of titles have been released as completed works or teasers of those coming soon.

Home for Salmon

This recent trend seemed to start with this critically-acclaimed film chronicling the extraordinary work of Peter C. Power and the Atlantic Salmon Reserve in Russia in protecting the Kharlovka river and the surrounding 5 million acres of Arctic tundra with its endemic salmon runs and other wildlife.

To obtain a free copy of the "Home for Salmon" DVD please send a brief message to info@kharlovka.com and they will post it to you at the address you provide. Alternatively you can purchase the excellent Atlantic Salmon Magic by Topher Browne, or buy the Limited Edition and a donation will be made to Atlantic Salmon charities and the DVD is included for free also with both editions.

A Passion Called Salmon

Next up is A Passion Called Salmon by Sasa Savic - a celebration of the magnificent Atlantic salmon and those who both fish for